Ethereum, which operated on a novel type of blockchain and proved to be even more profitable for miners than Bitcoin, was the biggest and most well-known altcoin and is still in use today. Unsurprisingly, that drew a large group of aspiring miners looking to make a quick buck.

Your timing is unfortunate if you’re thinking about trying out Ethereum mining. It is no longer worth mining Ethereum because the Ethereum blockchain recently underwent a significant change that altered how Ethereum is generated and verified. But that doesn’t mean you’ve given up on the chance to make money by supporting this rapidly growing blockchain network.

The returns from mining are still respectable, depending on your electricity costs, even though they are not quite as profitable as they were at this time last year. In this article, we will talk about whether it’s still worth it to mine Ethereum and more about Ethereum mining.

Is It Still Worth It to Mine Ethereum?

As long as the mining difficulty doesn’t change significantly, mining profits essentially fluctuate with the price of Ethereum; the more Ethereum’s value increases, the more profitable mining becomes. An Nvidia 3080 currently earns about $3–4 per day after electricity at a cost of $0.13 per kWh while Ethereum is worth around $3000. Profit was over $5 per day during the period when Ethereum was pushing prices above $4000, amounting to a monthly increase of $60.

Ethereum mining difficulty steadily increases over time as more hardware starts to participate. Despite this, the difficulty is increasing less quickly in 2022 than it did in 2021. Given the impending switch to proof of stake, this is probably the result of both slower price growth for ETH and hesitation to buy mining equipment. Despite ETH’s value being relatively flat, this gradual increase in mining power has helped to maintain mining revenue.

It will be up to each individual to decide whether mining is currently worthwhile. Considering that the local electricity rate is $0.13 per kWh, mining with my underpowered Nvidia 3080 costs me about 0.69 cents per day. A single GPU can bring in $450 if the merger doesn’t happen until September at a net profit of about $3 per day. That, however, is predicated on a constant uptime and the stability of Ethereum’s price.

What is the Ethereum Merge?

In the Ethereum network, the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism completely replaces the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. The Ethereum mainnet was connected to the beacon chain, where Proof-of-Stake was first introduced. Because of the merge, the entire Ethereum network has been using Proof-of-Stake.

The merge is likely the step that is most important when transitioning from Ethereum to Ethereum 2.0. The Ethereum network is much more productive, affordable, and long-lasting since Proof-of-Stake was implemented. On September 15, the Ethereum merge finally occurred without incident. We have outlined the merge in this article.

What Are the Consequences of the Ethereum Merge?

Long-term network efficiency will increase dramatically as a result of the Ethereum merger. With Ethereum, 99.9% less energy is used throughout the network. Similar to how transactions are accelerating, the network may eventually become much more resilient. The Ethereum Merge is currently significantly advancing the entire network.

Particularly the Ethereum miners view the merger somewhat more negatively. On the Ethereum network, mining used to be incredibly profitable. Ethereum mining has been more profitable recently, especially for smaller miners, as Bitcoin mining has become increasingly unprofitable.

What Made Mining Ethereum So Popular?

Ethereum had a market cap of $158.32 billion as of October, according to CoinMarketCap. 11 makes it the biggest altcoin by far. With over 20,000 crypto assets in circulation worldwide as of the same date, Ethereum accounts for 17.2% of the $920.35 billion total value.

Ethereum is different from the competition in more ways than just size; it uses a different kind of coin and blockchain.

Bitcoin is a “store-of-value” token — a decentralized currency that holders can spend like money or keep as an investment that they hope will appreciate in value.

On the other hand, developers can host smart contracts and run decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain, and these developers are building the digital infrastructure that will support the still-emerging Web3. The metaverse and NFT movements, which erupted into the public consciousness last year, found a home base in Ethereum thanks to its capacity.

The demand for Ethereum’s block space increased as a result of the new level of functional utility, increasing the rewards for miners.

Can You Still Mine Ethereum?

It’s no longer possible to enter the Ethereum mining market, so keep that in mind if you’re thinking about it. This is the outcome of a critical period of foundation-level blockchain transition from Ethereum to what is often referred to as Ethereum 2.0.

It involves more than just a name change.

Known simply as “the merge,” the transition has transformed how the Ethereum blockchain functions, how it is updated, and how tokens are created.

On Sept. 15, NextAdvisor reported that “It’s finished integrating Ethereum.” Two days later, the Ethereum blockchain switched from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

As a result of the merger, validators stake Ether (ETH) to keep the network running in place of Ethereum miners. The need for change was brought on by the traditional blockchain mining process’ unaffordable energy requirements. By using investor capital that is locked up in validating nodes to validate transactions rather than the energy-guzzling hardware that the mining industry relied on to run, the switch to PoS significantly improves energy efficiency.

Can I Mine Ethereum for Free?

Free Ethereum mining was never successful if it even was possible. The page on Ethereum.org that was previously devoted to mining laid out some of the cost factors; it is now only meant to be used as a historical resource and is topped with a disclaimer about the merge.

While “anyone was previously able to mine on the Ethereum network using their computer,” as noted by Without investing in specialized computer hardware and finding a cheap energy source, it was not likely that Ethereum.org could be done profitably.

Many miners combined their resources in “mining pools” — but that only added to the costs. According to Ethereum.org, “these pools typically charged a flat % fee of each block generated by the pool.”

Ventilation, electrical wiring, and energy-monitoring equipment were additional maintenance expenses for a so-called mining rig.

Some people chose to use cloud mining, which eliminated the need for pricey specialized hardware and equipment. Cloud mining platforms, which maintained the necessary servers remotely and provided access to their users for a fee, allowed miners to complete blockchain work from standard computers.

During the testing phases of some cloud services, miners were permitted to mine for free.

What is the Future of Ethereum Miners?

A further Ethereum miner migration may occur over the ensuing months and years. However, the mining sector is also talking about other solutions. With the switch to Ethereum, a significant revenue stream for the sector as well as for individual miners will disappear. The miners have the following alternatives:

• Migration to other networks
• Selling material and switching to staking
• Provision of computing power to other areas

Moving to different networks is probably the most simple fix. The miners are already switching to mining Ravencoin because they can no longer mine Ethereum. Ethereum Classic is additionally likely to gain the most. This network arose from a hard fork of the Ethereum network and is an “old version” of the original Ethereum.

Summary

While it is disappointing to see the merge delayed even further, it is good news for many GPU owners who enjoy the passive income mining can produce.

The simplest alternative for Ethereum miners is Ethereum Classic, which still uses proof-of-work to function. With Ethereum Classic, the hash rate has dramatically risen. In the long run, miners might also settle in this network.

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